Cast in Stone (35 page)

Still
decoding, Lefty trotted my card off into the gloom. The other guy
took a step back away from the gate and began stiffly pacing back and
forth like a Beefeater at the Tower of London.

The
click of a single sprinkler was joined in chorus by another. Closer I
could hear the thick drops striking the ground. In the localized
artificial light, Beefeater was now stalked by his shadow when he
marched left and pushed it before him like a wheelbarrow when
moving right.

It
was another ten minutes before Lefty returned. He'd found a friend.
Either they had a mould somewhere on the grounds where they made
these guys, or they were reproducing through cell division. Lefty
turned the handle on the back of the gate, pulled it open about three
feet, and beckoned me in. "You follow," he said.

I
followed. Down a wide flagstone walk bordered by bricks set on edge,
cutting through a well-manicured lawn surrounded by world-class
shrubbery. Lefty led the way; the other two brought up the rear.

It
must at one time have been a private home, a neocolonial manse. Maybe
thirty rooms when it was new. This was the kind of place where
secrets got buried. Where, if you had the cash, you stashed that
alcoholic ex-wife, that idiot brother Waldo who liked to wave his
pee-pee in public, or old Uncle Frank who just couldn't keep his
hands off little boys. As long as you kept paying the freight,
Mountainview Recovery would keep them out of your hair and out of the
papers.

We
climbed the two steps up to the twelve-panel doors on the front of
the building. Using a key attached to his belt, Lefty opened the door
in the middle. It swung open silently on oiled hinges. On the way by,
I grabbed the edge of the door and tested it with a fingernail.
Steel, not wood.

With
the same key, he opened the first door on the right. The room seemed
to be part library, part office. The spaces between the windows on
the left wall were covered with framed medical degrees and
official-looking plaques honoring civic contributions. The right wall
held books on built-in floor-to-ceiling shelves. An old-fashioned
sliding ladder provided access to the upper reaches.

Lefty
led me to the far end of the room, where an elegant teak desk, a bit
too big for Ping-Pong, was flanked by four red leather chairs with
brass studs hammered in along the seams.

"Here,"
he said, indicating nothing in particular.

"Yes,
we are," I agreed.

After
he backed out of the room and closed the door behind him, I walked
over to the windows. I scratched at the windowpane in front of me.
Plastic of some sort, about a half inch thick. What I had thought was
standard window leadings was instead more stainless steel. It would
take a lumberjack a half hour with a splitting maul to hack his way
through one of these babies.

I
checked out the books. Mostly ancient decorator stuff, chosen for the
color of their bindings rather than for the quality of their content.

The
large oil painting occupying the central position behind the
desk was of a woman in her thirties. Medium-length curly brown hair,
held back over the ears by a pair of gold clasps. A pointed chin that
seemed to poke out at the viewer. Pale blue eyes, showing white all
around, as if in a constant state of surprise. The brass plaque on
the table beneath the

picture
read "Medical Administrator—Dr. Lila Dawson."

I
was still admiring the artwork when a voice came from behind.

"I
hope you have a good reason for disturbing our patients, Mr.—"
She checked my card. "Waterman." She said it slowly. She
made it sound like a silly name. Some vagrant designation,
ignominiously bestowed on the substantially less fortunate.

The
painter had removed her rough edges. In the flesh, she was older,
thinner, and much more intense. Her heavily veined hands held my card
as she scanned it through her black half-glasses.

"My
apologies," I offered. Without being asked, I sat in the red
chair to the right of the desk. She walked around me and sat behind
the desk, placing my card in the exact center of the blotter,
meticulously squaring it up to the edges.

"Anyone
can have cards printed," she said when she was satisfied.

"Anyone
can have their portrait painted."

Lila
Dawson donned her glasses, sat back in her chair, and looked me over
like a lunch menu.

"I
don't think I like you," she said.

"That's
not very sensitive. You keep that up, you're gonna hurt my feelings.
Then I'll need rehabilitation."

She
removed her glasses now, allowing them to dangle from the gold chain
around her neck.

"Because
I am responsible for the well-being of so many, you'll excuse me if I
have little talent for levity, Mr. Waterman."

"You're
doing just fine," I assured her.

The
eyes opened even further.

"You
find disturbing the solitude of seriously ill patients to be a
laughing matter?"

"Certainly
not," I assured her. "I rang the bell. That's the way it's
done in polite society, isn't it?"

"You
should have called ahead for an appointment."

"Would
I have gotten one?" A thin smile.

"I
just have a few simple questions about one of your patients."

She
treated me to a stare that was supposed to melt me into a slobbering
mass of protoplasm. "All information concerning my patients
is strictly confidential."

"Claire
Hasu is one of your patients. Is that correct?"

She
opened the center drawer on her desk and poked around inside.

"I
am not at liberty to share that with you. Now if that will be all—"
She let it hang.

"Not
even close," I said. "I have no desire to breach any kind
of confidentiality. I just—"

The
door hissed behind me. Huey, Dewey, and Louie stepped into the room,
standing with their backs to the door. I turned back to Dr. Dawson.

"I
only want to know—"

She
stood up. "These unfortunate "souls have enough problems
without the likes of you. Can you imagine the agony that their
families go through? Can you imagine a life without control of your
senses or even your most elemental bodily functions? Can you?"
Her voice rose. "Can you imagine yourself completely in the
hands of others? When even your most basic need is at the whim of
someone else? Can you? Would you like that, Mr. Water . .. man? Would
that give you pleasure?"

When
I didn't answer she spoke over my shoulder. "Mr. Waterman will
be leaving."

I
rose from the chair. "Mr. Waterman will be back," I said.
"With a state inspector and a couple of policemen. Thanks for
your time."

She
stood to face me, her face suddenly quivering as if she were getting
an electric shock.

Again
she spoke over my shoulder. "Tienes lista las medicina?"

I
didn't hear an answer, but I could feel them moving behind me. I
stood up and stepped to the desk. I lifted a decorative crystal
sphere from its wooden base on the desk and palmed it like a
softball. Lefty was coming down the center rug, his right hand cupped
at his side. Dewey and Louie were carrying out a flanking movement
along the walls.

"I'm
leaving, Doctor," I said to her. "No need for—"

"Agarallo!"
she cried.

I
was a step slow. The sphere caught Lefty square in the forehead, but
not before he pierced my left shoulder with whatever he'd been
hiding. He fell at my feet. I reached down and jerked at the chain
that held his key, tearing a belt loop free, coming away with it. He
groaned and rolled over onto his face. Dewey and Louie feinted at me
but kept their distance.

Brandishing
the sphere, I began to back toward the door. I checked over my
shoulder for reinforcements. A syringe, plunger down, was imbedded in
my shoulder. I pawed at it with my free hand, knocking it to the
floor.

The
doctor stayed put; her face was lopsided now, without symmetry. "No.
No, no," she ordered. "El no llega legos. La medicina lo
calma."

They
shadowed me up the room but made no move to stop me as I fumbled the
key into the lock and backed out the door. As I kicked the door shut,
my right arm was suddenly pinned to my side by a face I couldn't keep
still. I reached around the face, grabbed the back of the neck, and
drove my

forehead
hard into the center of the swiri. I heard the crack and scrape of
bone. The grasp loosened. I brought the sphere up from my shoetops.
It caught him under the chin to the crushed-rock sound of teeth
crushing teeth. The apparition disappeared. I swung in a circle,
looking for new challengers. Bad move.

My
eyes failed to keep up with my head. The disparity upset my
equilibrium; I went to one knee. Whatever Lefty had injected into my
shoulder was beginning to take effect. I weaved out the front door,
missed the first step, and sprawled out onto the flagstones. Even
through the injection, I could feel the searing pain in my left
elbow.

I
started forward but inadvertently veered left around the main
building as if driven by the wind. My legs felt heavy and useless
like I was running uphill in deep sand. I kept leaning left and
running until I came to the fence on the south side of the building.
Like the windows, the fence was at once decorative and formidable.
Eight feet tall, wrought-iron spikes with fancy spearpoints on top.
It would take an agile and determined patient to climb out into the
woods.

The
world was animated and quivering with life. Each leaf, each blade of
grass, was alive and moving independently of its brethren as if
undulating to some underlying cosmic rhythm. It was all I could do
not to stand and gawk in wonder. I hadn't felt this good since
seventy-nine. I moved forward along the fence, working toward my car,
using my hands to maintain my balance, searching in braille for an
opening in the fence.

I
could hear voices to my right. Moving closer. My path along the fence
line was blocked by a massive rhododendron. Beams of light bobbed and
crisscrossed over the lawn area. I squatted next to the bush,
lost my balance, and sat heavily. The lights moved closer.

I
crawled in between the rhodie and the fence, separated from the yard
by the massive twisted trunk of the bush. The legs of two white-clad
orderlies danced by the small opening in the roots. I wiggled my body
down into the soft loam. Years of beauty bark had lined the flower
bed with a soft, spongelike carpet. My hand felt the bottom of one of
the fence spikes. Instinctively, I began to dig, moving the bark up
and forward, piling the soft material around the roots of the shrub,
creating an earthwork to further shield me from the yard.

The
lights and the legs came by again, this time lingering on my hiding
place. I peeked through the roots. Dewey and Louie. With Lefty and
the other guy out of commission, they seemed to be all that was left.

"Que
es eso ayi?"

"Donde?"

The
lights swept back and forth, centering on my hidey-hole. I ducked my
head and waited to be found. Inexplicably, the whole scene suddenly
seemed wildly amusing. I had to push my face into the ground to avoid
laughing out loud.

A
sudden clamor arose from the other end of the grounds. I could hear
high-pitched yelling, but couldn't make out the words. The legs
thundered off a run, their four-legged vibrations fast fading.

Sputtering,
I rose to my knees, clearing my eyes and spitting bark, digging now
like a dog for a bone, using both hands to send a rooster tail of
dirt out behind me. Within two minutes, I had hollowed out a space
large enough for me to wiggle out under the fence.

Once
out, I giggled my way around the perimeter, bouncing off trees,
falling twice, until I was at the back of the Fiat. The main gate was
still closed. Back

inside
the fence, several shadows were moving my way on foot. I ran, slow
motion, to the Fiat, threw open the door, and climbed in. I felt
around the ignition. No keys. The wheel was locked. Thank God I'd
used The Club. I began to laugh hysterically. Tears ran down my
cheeks as I wrenched the wheel back and forth in a frenzy. On the
fifth try, the pin that locked the steering wheel snapped. The
shadows were getting shorter. There were three of them. I counted
again. Three.